19 October 2019 | New Scientist | 29Exhibition
Tutankhamun: Treasures
of the golden pharaoh
Saatchi Gallery, London
From 2 November to 3 May 2020
LIFE after death was a complicated
business in Ancient Egypt. The
volume of treasures found in
Tutankhamun’s tomb show that
Egyptian royals didn’t travel lightly
to the afterlife. When King Tut’s
crypt was discovered nearly
100 years ago – the only tomb of a
pharaoh to be found unplundered –
it contained thousands of objects
to help his bid for immortality.
Now, 150 of these objects are
on a world tour. Sixty of them have
never travelled out of Egypt before,
and some are probably personal
objects from his life. This stunning
exhibition, which focuses on the
significance of these funerary items
for Tut’s journey to an everlasting
afterlife, arrives in London after a
sell-out stint in Paris.
Tutankhamun is a household
name today, but he was only a
minor pharaoh, ascending to the
throne aged 9 or 10 in around
1334 BC and reigning for less than
a decade until his untimely death.
Interred in a tomb meant for
someone of lower status, he was
later erased from the records due to
his heretic father, with no funerary
cult to keep his memory alive.
The forgotten pharaoh burst
back onto the scene more than
3000 years later in November
1922, when archaeologist
Howard Carter uncovered a
rock-cut staircase leading to Tut’s
tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings
after five years of searching. “At last
have made wonderful discovery in
Valley; a magnificent tomb with
seals intact,” wrote Carter in a
telegram to his benefactor.
Untouched since ancient times,
it was a treasure trove of 5398
funerary artefacts. As well as the
boy king’s mummy, interred in a
sarcophagus and three inner coffins,
the tomb contained a “strange and
wonderful medley of extraordinary
and beautiful objects”, said Carter.
These included a silver trumpet
(that still makes a beautiful sound),
statues of the gods and six chariots.
Traditionalists might baulk at
the exhibition’s format. Rather
than a dry parade of artefacts, it
is an immersive experience that
attempts to conjure the mystique
of dark chambers and the intricate
details of the Egyptian afterlife
through lighting and sound.
King Tut himself isn’t here – hisfrail mummy remains in its original
resting place, chamber KV62 in the
Valley of the Kings – but his likeness
is everywhere, most strikingly in an
extraordinarily lifelike black and
gold statue that originally guarded
the burial chamber. Gold symbolised
the sun to the Egyptians, and there
is plenty on display, from slippers
that adorned the mummy’s feet to
a gilded wooden bed carved with
figures to keep evil forces at bay.
But the burial hoard wasn’t
all bling. The priests who interred
Tutankhamun seemingly thought
of every item he would need to
overcome obstacles on his voyage
to the next life and to thrive when
he got there. On display at the
exhibition are linen gloves he might
have worn when riding a chariot
and a collection of boomerangs
for hunting birds and warding off
evil spirits adopting their form, as
well as some of the vessels that
contained sustenance for the
afterlife, including meats, breads,
spices and wine. Visitors can also
see some of the 413 different
workforce figurines called shabti
that Tut was interred with to carry
out his labour in the next world.
After London, Tut’s objects head
for Sydney, Australia, and six other
cities before reaching their final
destination at the Grand Egyptian
Museum, under construction near
the pyramids at Giza. ❚This shrine shows
Tutankhamun and his
half-sister Ankhesenamun LABORATORIOROSSO
The golden afterlife of King Tut
Tutankhamun was a minor pharaoh, but the funerary objects
soon arriving in the UK were fit for any king, says Alison George
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URSULA COYOTE/NETFLIX; © THE ROYAL COLLECTION 2019A gilded
wooden figure
of Tutankhamun
on a skiff